Some examples of LED display modules incorporate an arrangement of a plurality of different colored LEDs, such as Red-Green-Blue colors known as an LED package. The LED package includes a circuit board with the LEDs coupled thereon and extending from the circuit board. In one example, to protect the circuit board from the surrounding environment, a potting material is poured over the circuit board, the circuit board is moved into an oven, and the potting material is cured on the circuit board in the oven. The cured potting material isolates and seals the circuit board. In another example, an ultraviolet protective coating or parylene coating is applied to protect the circuit board.
Potting and other coatings have a number of drawbacks. The materials to pot and coat are heavy and expensive. LED display modules are thereby correspondingly heavy and expensive. Further, as described above, potting requires multiple manufacturing and handling steps for application to the LED display module. Moreover, the LEDs extending from the circuit board are often bent during the potting process. Bent LEDs either fail entirely or cause inconsistencies in video and picture quality, color and contrast as light from the bent LEDs is readily distinguishable from light generated from LEDs that are properly aligned on the circuit board. To correct issues with bent LEDs technicians must manually straighten or replace bent LEDs after manufacture. For large LED display modules, such as scoreboards, jumbo viewing screens and the like manual correction of bent LEDs can be labor and time intensive, and thereby expensive to the buyer and/or manufacturer. Applying ultraviolet and parylene coatings create similar drawbacks.